1. Field of the Invention
This specification relates to a mobile terminal capable of being compatible with market applications having resolutions of various sizes of LCDs, and an LCD resolution compatibility method thereof.
2. Background of the Invention
Mobile terminals may be configured to perform various functions, for example, data and voice communication, capturing images or video, storing voice, reproducing music files via a speaker system, displaying images or video and the like. Some of mobile terminals may include an additional function of playing games, and other mobile terminals may be implemented as multimedia players. In addition, in recent time, mobile terminals can receive broadcast or multicast signals to allow viewing of video or television programs.
Furthermore, many efforts are undergoing to support or enhance various functions of such mobile terminals. Such many efforts include not only changes and improvement of structural components implementing a mobile terminal but also software or hardware improvement.
Among others, a touch function of the mobile terminal is designed for a user unfamiliar to button/key input using a touch screen to conveniently execute operations of the mobile terminal. In recent time, the touch function is becoming an important function of the terminal together with a user interface (UI), in addition to a simple input function. Hence, as the touch function is further applied to the mobile terminal in various forms, development of appropriate UIs is more needed.
In recent time, responding to mobile communication technologies and users' demands, mobile terminals having different types (sizes) of LCDs are being released. The types of LCDs include Quarter Video Graphic Array (QVGA) with resolution of 320×240, Half VGA (HVGA) with resolution of 480×320, Wide VGA (WVGA) with resolution of 800×480, quarter High Definition (qHD) with resolution of 960×540, HD with resolution of 1920×1080, eXtended Graphics Array (XGA) with resolution of 1024×768, and the like. Among others, the QVGA has the lowest resolution and the XGA has the highest resolution.
Manufacturers of terminals or developers of applications have developed applications for mobile terminals or smart phones to be used for such various types of LCDs. This trend gives rise to various changes in applications, from applications for an existing WVGA only to applications for HD, XGA, HVGA, QVGA and the like.
However, the manufactures of terminals suffer from an increase in development costs when applications are developed for each type of LCD in consideration of various LCD sizes. To overcome the disadvantage, terminal manufactures first develop an application for WVGA, and refactor the application using a multi-screen function to apply to other types of LCDs. However, this also requires to develop a separate application for each type of LCD (LCD resolution) because many incompatible LCDS are present.
In addition, with the increase in the spread of smart phones in recent time, users download their desired paid or free applications from markets to use in their own terminals or smart phones. However, when an application downloaded from a market is not properly executed (displayed) due to being incompatible with a user's terminal, for example, LCD of HD phone, the user may feel that the HD phone or the application has a problem. This situation results in lowering reliability for the product (mobile terminal or application). Consequently, it may be worked as a severe restriction at the moment when the user selects an LCD of a new product later (for example, upon purchasing a new terminal).
To overcome the shortcomings, a resolution compatibility mode (or compatibility mode), in which an application supporting a specific resolution is able to be displayed at a different resolution without a screen broken, is used in mobile terminals.
However, most of users are not aware of a function of setting the resolution compatibility mode. Especially, the resolution compatibility mode is set to “Off” as a default value. If an application with an incompatible resolution is displayed, a user may view a broke screen at least one time.
Therefore, when the broken screen is displayed due to the difference of resolution, the user suffers from changing the compatibility mode setting from “Off” to “On” one by one after entrance into a display settings menu.
In addition, upon execution of another application after changing the compatibility mode into “On”, when the corresponding application is upgraded to support several resolutions, the compatibility mode may disadvantageously remain in the “On” state, in spite of no need to set the mode to “On”.
Therefore, in the related art, the On/Off decision with respect to the resolution compatibility mode is manually performed individually based on a user's determination. This causes a trouble in ensuring compatibility of the resolution for each application.